Media coverage

Negative media hinder George Osborne’s Budget | PR Week

As George Osborne gives his Budget statement, new res­earch by TLG and Populus has revealed the extent of the Chancellor’s task to generate positive coverage of the UK economy.

Res­earch from TLG suggests even Conservative-leaning media are consistently negative about UK economic prospects.

TLG found that 69 per cent of opinion formers believed even the right-leaning Daily Mail was talking down the economy, while 74 per cent thought the same of the Daily Express. The BBC, cited as the UK’s most influential media brand, was found by 54 per cent of opinion-formers to be talking down the economy.

Fifty-six per cent agreed there was a direct relationship between how the media reported on the economy and the UK’s economic performance.

“Traditionally, key to a favourable media was the ability to demonstrate alignment between political and Editorial priorities and opinion leaders. The internet has given us wikipolitics, which means voters are opinion leaders – not just as election times. The parties should be aiming to forge core values connections with middle Britain.”
- Malcolm Gooderham, MD TLG

In numbers:
- 51% of opinion formers think TV has the most impact on business reputation
- 47% think bbc.co.uk is the online medium with most influence on business rep
- 47% think Twitter is the social media site with most influence on business rep
- 65% think Robert Peston is the most influential commentator

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Malcolm Gooderham from SXSW festival

Malcolm Gooderham, SXSW

The SXSW festival is famous for amongst other things showcasing the shape of things to come. For example, Twitter was ‘discovered’ here in 2007.
Three connected trends are emerging that will have an impact on brand reputations and communications. Plus, challenge us to rethink what is ‘media’.

First. Crowd-sourcing is not only here to stay, but is set to revolutionise what we do. It is giving us the ability to exercise influence in ways that invert traditional relationships. This revolution means rethinking communications so as to make the people the message. It also means having a healthy respect for so-called ‘weak ties’ people enjoy online as they can have a strong impact on social and commercial trends.

Second. ‘Social’ is beating ‘search’. To date one brand is more readily associated with the rise of the Internet and that is Google. In an information age google is king, because of the algorithm. However, we are no longer in an information age. We are in era of ‘networked intelligence’ where our peers are more prominent and more important than an algorithm. Google recognises this, that is why it launched Google+, ‘a social layer’ that sits across the top of existing services.

However, there is already a social layer that sits across much of the world, Facebook. And what makes Facebook tick, will make other businesses successful, us: our sociability and creativity. Either directly, as companies successfully aggregate news and views, like the brilliant Flipboard. Or, as the beneficiaries of positive aggregation and peer review. Understanding this value chain is key to good PR.

Third. Privacy is fast becoming the touchstone issue of the decade. As technology improves and becomes more accessible so we will increasingly ‘live’ on line. Businesses and governments will encourage us to live in a paperless world where everything is stored in the cloud. This will involve transferring and committing more personal data online. How that data is used and managed generates significant potential risks for individuals and for the reputations of the organisations involved.

This may sound like an ominous note on which to end, so I should point out that the company that has successfully branded file sharing in the cloud, dropbox, is now valued at up to four billion dollars, which might explain why Drew Houston has been strolling around SXSW with a smile on his face.

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